Every now and again, I wonder, “Why do I like this format?” I’ve come up with a few different answers over the past five years, but when I boil it down, mainly, I like playing with my favorite Magic cards.

Have a look at the fifteen (IRL) Legacy tournaments I’ve played in and take a guess at my favorite cards:

I’m far from the best player I know (that would be Frogboy), but blue-based decks have worked well for me and I really enjoy playing them. It's partly about budget; I can’t put together real-life versions of every deck I’d like to play. Mainly though, playing blue decks in tournaments is a preference, since I have other options sleeved-up in my closet that I choose not to play: specifically, Zoo (R/g/w), Monoblack Control, Affinity, U/r Blood Moon Control and U/w Fish (basically, the “NoGoyf” deck which seems like it would benefit significantly by dropping the “No” from that deck’s name/design).

For me, Legacy is and always has been about my two favorite cards in the game:

Misty Rainforest is my favorite land in all of Magic; even unseating my previous favorite land in the game: the Almighty Basic Island. I’ve waited ages for a blue/green fetchland and am thrilled I can finally sleeve these up. Even the art is great. Santa was good to me this year and kindly left a playset of Misty Rainforests in my stocking. Thanks, Santa! (You may remember, I had to replace the one my little friend ate (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15142).)

For the tournament at the end of December at Other Worlds, I predicting a field with a concentration of aggro-control, zoo/burn/fast red and combo, so I played a metagamed version of Vorosh 1.x (Chalice Landstill), but dropped the black splash for white. Here’s what I played:

In the maindeck, Chalice is like a one-card Counter-Top (CT) which frees up slots (CT takes up seven-eight slots) and requires a lot less brainpower to use effectively than CT, which requires attention to a ton of triggers and operational decisions, turn after turn, game after game, etc. Also, I’ve played Counter-Top in my last three tournaments and wanted to play something a little more idiot-proof today. So I opted for Chalice in place of Counterbalance, which I have a fair amount of experience playing in control shells (http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=32964.0). The rest of the maindeck is traditional U/w control cards in a Landstill shell except for Tarmogoyf, which I’ve long advocated for in Landstill. Here, it plays as a control card in the early game and an efficient win condition in the late game.

To me, one of Landstill’s main weaknesses, in the confines of the timed-rounds of tournament, is its slowness. From experience, you can grind out a slow win G1, tank in G2, and not have enough time to win in G3 in the remaining round time. There Tarmogoyf is a champ. For instance, in Round 4, Game 3 (vs. Wombat-esque W/b board control), time was called (during my opponent’s turn) and I had 3 turns to win with my opponent on 20 (he’d gone up to 24 from StPs earlier in the round). I was able to gain control of the board (and with the help of Chalice to fend off opposing StPs) was able to inflict 29 damage in extra turns (from 20 to 11->1>-9). Decree for a large amount of token can sometimes do this, but Decree is weaker in the early game.

Tarmogoyf also gives Landstill strategic flexibility by not always being forced to play the control role. Round 1, Game 3 (vs. Elves!), for instance, I landed a couple of early Goyfs and played Landstill like I was playing old school Thresh out for blood: bash and counter anything that interferes with the beatdown. Tarmogoyf also lets me play Landstill like I want to play it; sometimes, I just want to drop some beef and smash. Tying up your mana and attacking with manlands for 2-4 a turn just isn’t as satisfying.

Finally, I like to have some time to breathe and chill between rounds. Especially in small tournaments, which are basically testing sessions, I like to talk with my opponent’s after a match to discuss critical lines of play, how we sideboarded and other assorted banter. But when your matches go to time, you lose the opportunity for feedback since you often need to frantically de-sideboard as pairings are being announced. Tarmogoyf gives me time to chill.

Vendilion Clique is similarly a control card that doubles as an evasive beater and also has the benefit of being in Landstill’s primary colors. Just an all-around solid card that fits the theme perfectly.

In the sideboard, the five blue blasts are for the red aggro decks I usually see in the Portland metagame (Goblins, Zoo, Sligh, Burn). As a side benefit, they can be boarded in vs. combo (in place of board control) as Force Food. Don’t laugh, it works.

The five anti-Dredge cards are for a deck that usually smash my decks, but give me a fighting chance in Games 2/3. (I beat LED Dredge in three games in my last tournament, playing Bant Counter-Top, solely because of my 2/2 Crypt/Relic package.)

The Crucibles and Academy Ruins are for the control mirror. They were once in the maindeck but were moved to the sideboard for being too slow against the general field. In a few rounds, I sideboarded out a Wasteland for the Ruins, since Wasteland wasn’t going to do much.

Aside
Testing the deck over the past few weeks, those three maindeck Wastelands have been all sorts of things, such as 2 Nantuko Monasteries / 1 Academy Ruins, 3 basic more lands, 1 Treetop Village / 1 Tolaria West / 1 Maze of Ith and everything in between. In the end, 3 Wasteland seemed fine, though it’s the slot that remains most in the air to me. Interestingly, the first place Bant Landstill deck that won the Nov. 7, 2009 Alternate Universe tournament (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/print.php?Article=18295) ran a sweet utility land package of four Mishra’s Factories, two Nantuko Monasteries and one each of Tolaria West, Academy Ruins and Wasteland. End Aside.

Zilla was characteristically out of town, on mysterious business with mysterious people. Thanksfully so, I should add; I’ve been avoiding him ever since that time I urinated in his coffee.

There was no Top 8 today, just four rounds, with final standings determining prizes.

My notes from the tournament are worse than usual. Just life total and some scribblings I made between rounds. If you were there, feel free to correct anything I have wrong. Next time, I’ll take better notes, such as my Fact or Fiction reveals and how they were split.

Round One, Game One: Ian Playing Elves!?
I win the roll and we both keep. I play nothing of consequence on turn one and he leads with Forest into Nettle Sentinel. I’m thinking “Oh noes! Elf Combo and I have a slow hand.” I Force (pitching Counterspell) and realize he’s running a different kind of combo (see G3) when the board starts to fill up with a Wellwisher, Elvish Archdruid and assorted guys. Engineered Explosives wrecks his board and I win G1 at a comfortable 17 life (all self-inflicted) with a 4/5 Goyf.

Sideboarding: Out: 1 Wasteland; In: 1 Academy Ruins

Game Two
In a weird twist, I lose this game because of my own Wrath of God, which netted me a prized 3-for-1. It’s the mid-game and I have (more or less) a board of Tundra, Wasteland, Factory and Flooded Strand. His side of the board is filling up with various elves and I’m doing my best to conceal a big smile with my singleton Wrath of God in my hand. I fetch Tundra #2 with my Strand and kill 3 of his guys. This sadly strands a Goyf and EE in my hand as I never see a Trop or fetchland for the rest of the game. He continues to play guy after guy (Llanowar Elves, triple Elvish Archdruid, other stuff) and I can’t EE=3. I stall as long as I can, but am eventually beaten down.

Shuffling up in G3, I’m determined not to lose to Elves. The embarrassment would be too much to deal with.

Game Three
This game goes much better for me. He leads with Forest and Llanowar Elves (“OH NO!!!”). I play fetchland, go. I Spell Snare his second turn play and lay a Factory and Standstill, which he’s forced to break a couple of turns later. A four-spell Fact or Fiction does not help his game either. Ian’s life tally: 20 – 18 – 20 – 14 – 4 – L. Double 5/6 Goyfs are enough.

I should note that he was able to get all of his combo pieces onto the board this game: Intruder Alarm, Imperious Perfect, Llanowar Elves (Llanowar and Perfect tap to make a guy; Intruder Alarm untaps them; Llanowar and Perfect tap to make a guy; etc.). To prevent any sort of shenanigans, I’ve been sandbagging an EE for several turns. It was sad though, the look of absolute joy of his face when he played that Intruder Alarm and passed the turn. It only took one rare from Fifth Dawn to crush his dream and kill a small part of his soul. I felt the need to apologize, and I did, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.

1-0

Round Two, Game One: Don Playing Dredge
I win the die roll and keep a fine hand against unknown opposition if only I draw into another colored mana source. Don mulls to 6. I lead with a Rainforest and pass. Don plays City of Brass into Cabal Therapy, naming “Force of Will.” I figure he’s either on Reanimator (:laugh:), Survival (:confused:) or Dredge (:frown:). I reveal a Force, Counterspell, Spell Snare, double Wasteland and a Wrath of God. His turn 2 Tireless Tribe makes me :frown:. I hit his City and a Coliseum with my Wastelands; Don doesn’t see any more mana sources, but has a ton of juice in the graveyard by that point and I’m clobbered by 4x Narcomoeba and too many zombie tokens to handle. Also, I never find a second white source for that Wrath.

Game Two
On the play, Don keeps his seven while I mull to five and fail to find a Force or any of my sideboard cards in the 18 cards I see while mulliganing into oblivion. I don’t remember much about this one, other than being color-screwed and losing badly to a Dread Return’d (enormous) Grave Troll, zombies, Ichorids, etc.

1-1

We play a couple of more games; Don needs practice playing through hate and I need practice figuring out how to best use hate (optimal times to crack Crypt and Relic). In one practice game I lead with double Crypt; Don Therapies and then nukes both of my Crypts with an Ancient Grudge + flashback shortly after that. Hmm, that sucked.

Between Grudge and Pithing Needle, Leyline of the Void seems appealing these days. I realize Ray of Revelation exists, but that card doesn’t seem to get much play in Legacy. My sideboard for the next tournament may look like this:

Sure, I won’t have BB to play Leyline from my hand on turn 4 if I draw into it, but that’s not likely to matter, you know?

Round Three, Game One: Brad Playing U/w/r Good Stuff
I lose the die roll and see Brad is playing a “Good/Mediocre Stuff” in blue/white/red, cards like Divining Top, Wrath, Lightning Bolt, StP/Path, etc. Turn 2, he casts Luminarch Ascension, which I vaguely remember from the Zendikar spoiler but need to read. Thankfully, it costs 2 and Spell Snare leaps out of my hand to counter it. Otherwise, the game proceeds badly for him, with me drawing a shit-ton of cards off Standstill and Facts and eventually winning with Big Tarms.

Game Two
Our second game goes a lot longer than the first as he keeps drawing into removal, but I keep drawing into card draw, maintain a fistful of spells and play my threats out slowly. I don’t remember much about this game, except that it took some time, but I never felt like I was going to lose.

Round Four, Game One: Matt Playing W/b Board Control
I lose the roll again, which is fine this time since I’m playing the pseudo-mirror and his deck is slow. Matt’s deck appears to be 22-24 land (Swamps, Plains and duals), 18-22 removal spells and 8-10 win conditions. As it goes, I can’t keep any damage sources on the board and just lose.

Sideboarding: Out: 1 Wasteland; In: 1 Academy Ruins

While sideboarding and shuffling, I change how I think about this game: I’m the control deck, not the beatdown.

Game Two
I don’t remember anything about this game, but it must have been weird. Here are the life tallies:

Game Three
This game was painful. I land an early Clique and Matt reveals the following hand: Swords to Plowshares, Diabolic Edict, Wrath of God, Swords to Plowshares, Disenchant, Vindicate. Fuck. He has about as much removal in his hand as I have win conditions in my entire deck. The first thing I think: “We’re drawing this game. That sucks.” Thing is, I want to win.

While he has buckets of removal, I have card draw and counters. My best bet: Chalice for the win. My first gets Disenchanted, the second Vindicated, but the third sticks and makes his Swords and Paths useless. Through this, I hit him with double Fact and a Standstill or two.

As I mentioned in the beginning of this report, time is called on his turn, and I bring him from 20 to –9 in extra turns (a 6/7 Goyf + double Factory). Whew.

At 3-1, losing only to the 4-0 player (Don), I have enough points to make third place, which gives me enough store credit to pick up some cards for my EDH deck (see below).

Overall, the deck was fine, with only the Wrath and Wastelands likely to be cut. I’m thinking the Wrath will become Clique #2 with one of the Wastelands becoming Academy Ruins with Wasteland #3 moved to the sideboard.

Honestly, I can’t say that Chalice is better than Counterbalance. In fact, I’m pretty sure Counterbalance is better, but I wanted to play something different that was easier to play. Dredge is still a problem but the new sideboard should help and come in against decks running Entomb, LFTL, etc.

Good stuff Bardo-I dig your deck. Personally I would rather play countertop, but that is probably because I do not get to play that often due the lack of players near me.

Also, thanks for posting the info for Other Worlds: I am actually going to be moving to Portland sometime between April and June and I am glad to know that there are places that have legacy tournaments in the area. Once I get setup (i.e. get an apartment/job/figure out a daily routine) I might be able to join you folks for some legacy goodness.

I never got to play you which is sad, but I played against Elves round 1 (I believe it was the same deck you faced, just a different person), a UW control deck round 2 (I was told it wins by decking), Tempo Thresh round 3 (Volt), and Dredge round 4 (Don).

Only losses were to Don which means I definitely will put GY hate in the SB.

Hopefully you'll be there next week because I am going to try, nothing solid yet though. Congrats again!

Volt

12-31-2009, 03:02 AM

Cool report, Bardo. You picked a good day to come play Legacy at OW. We haven't had 16 people in a few months.

Waikiki

12-31-2009, 03:20 AM

I did not read anything about how good the chalice where working. Could you give some insight on how these ran the entire day?

NQN

12-31-2009, 07:44 AM

Iīd like to know that too since on paper they look horrible. I can see myself drawing swords and brainstorms after having cast a chalice@1 most of the time.
And why didnīt you side in Ruins against Dredge? Or did you just forgot to write it down?

great report though, funny deck as well :)

Bardo

12-31-2009, 01:49 PM

I did not read anything about how good the chalice where working. Could you give some insight on how these ran the entire day?

Good question, I should have covered this better in the report, at least in the wrap-up section. Chalice is a high-risk/high-reward card here. You're betting that the damage you'll do to your opponent is much worse than the damage you do to yourself. From playing it in Standstill a lot (previously in U/B/g), its closest analog is Standstill: it slows your opponent's development, buys time and nets CA, strategically, all the things LS wants.

Mainly, they're good vs. the decks I was expecting: Zoo, burn, Thresh, storm combo. They're shit vs. randomness, but I was banking the strength of the rest of the deck would beat random decks. And it did. In general good cards > random decks. I mostly played randomness, so they didn't shine.

About screwing yourself out of cards (dropping Chalice=1 and drawing into StP), it doesn't happen often, and whenever it has, I've never lost because of it. If you play it right, vs. the right deck, it can really wreck the opposition, that's why you play it.

And no, I forgot to bring in Ruins vs. Dredge. I should have. I was so busy trying to clear out awful cards (and there are many in the maindeck vs. Dredge) that it slipped my mind. Next tourney, I'll have Ruins maindeck, so it shouldn't be an issue.

Your chalice control reminds me of one of your previous builds. Here is a link for reference: http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=22662. I am sure I've shown you the link before through private messaging.

I am certainly glad to see Fact or fiction in the deck and it seems quite effective when you have chalice active on the board too. Seems like the combination covers alot of ground in the modern environment. With that said, I definitely need to take this deck for a spin sometime since I feel your deck is quite strong.

Phoenix Ignition

01-02-2010, 03:00 AM

Nice read. I like the idea of Chalice in a deck like this... mainly because I love that card, but I do think your reasons are sufficient for inclusion.

So any tentative swapping of a FoF or two for the new Jace?

Sorry not very on topic but it seems like a really good deck to run it in (Chalice at whatever, bounce their that casting cost creature is as good as removal).

klaus

01-02-2010, 09:59 AM

Cool report..but:
I'm really not gettin the idea behind Chalice in that shell.
Being set at 1 it blocks 11 of your cards.
Being set at 2 it blocks 10 cards.
Did you really only include it as MDed combo hate (@0)?

Imo any combination of Path, Top, CoW, 4th Snare, DoJ would have been more beneficial.

Tao

01-02-2010, 10:07 AM

lol @chalice:
I've seen many horrible ideas but cotv in this deck is certainly in the top3 of them. You should have played Progenitus or Arcades Sabboth instead, at least they pitch to fow instead of screwing yourself. O yeah I am a bit mean because I am not sure if this is supposed to be a joke, and because I know you can do better.

Illissius

01-02-2010, 12:02 PM

Seriously, Chalice is not as crazy as it sounds. I played a UBG Landstill deck in one of these online tournaments a long time ago likewise with 3 Chalices maindeck (inspired by Bardo's version at the time). It was basically my win condition. Drop a Chalice at one, a Chalice at two, and then beat them down with Factories. It was quite effective. In the abstract you might have a bunch of cards in your deck at whichever CMC, but in practice during an actual game you're able to use it very effectively, depending on the actual situation at hand, to catch them with their pants down and make it very asymmetrical. (For just the most obvious point, you can empty your hand of cards at that cost beforehand, whereas it catches your opponent completely by surprise.)

I think this was before the rise of Countertop, which is more than likely going to be a better idea nowadays, but Bardo doesn't state otherwise either.

Media314r8

01-02-2010, 01:14 PM

I think that chalice set at 1 wouldn't be terrible despite the bombo of 4x swords and 4x brainstorm... IF you ran EE/other removal to sweep up afterward. You have 1 WoG after chalice at zero, and it seems you'll likely put off setting chalice until you've found/cast your removal on your opponents' creatures. It seems like something such as sower of temptation, vedalkin shackles, or Exile (not path... the legends CMC3 card) both work well in games where you've set a chalice at one, as sower is protected from most removal with chalices at one and two, and exile buys you more time to win with CA while dodging your own chalices. I again have to agree with everyone who's bitching about your 20+ cards at one and two, but would recommend you alter/add to your methods of removal as to not make chalices dead draws when you are behind on board position, as if they are only good when the board is neutral or favorable, they fit the definition of 'win-more.' I realize this can be said about standstill, but let's face it. Chalice has nowhere near the effect of standstill, as you have not constructed your deck's curve to abuse it. IMO, neat idea, needs more tuning and testing.

Bardo

01-02-2010, 01:58 PM

So any tentative swapping of a FoF or two for the new Jace?

Right after he was leaked I proxied three New Jace and replaced the Facts in the deck. Such a weird card. I was surprised how often I could ramp up the Fateseal ability into his ultimate. With Chalice, the deck stalls the shit out of things. I also liked Unsummon into Standstill. When in doubt, Brainstorm was fine.

It's hard card to evaluate. After a dozen or so games with them, I'm not convinced whether they're rubbish or have a place, but if they do, it's probably going to be in a LS shell.

Cool report..but:
I'm really not gettin the idea behind Chalice in that shell.
Being set at 1 it blocks 11 of your cards.
Being set at 2 it blocks 10 cards.
Did you really only include it as MDed combo hate (@0)?

I hear you, Klaus and I'm not suggesting anyone take it to a GP or something like that. You can easily re-template the deck to run CT, which is superior:

About the rest of the "Chalice in this deck sucks" comments, I'm certainly not going to win any arguments on theoretical grounds. I agree, on paper, it looks *awful*. In practice though, and I say this after 100+ games in U/w/g and U/b/g, it really works out just fine. It's a potent, skill-testing card that wrecks good decks and it helps that this deck doesn't need to play any spells to win. Overall, I think the approach has been made obsolete by CT. But that's the benefit of having weekly, local tournaments that have a $5 entry, you can try out weird shit and have fun with it.

Also, I wouldn't recommend messing with the curve too much. If you run too many higher CMC cards to have more synergy with Chalice, you're slowing the deck down and you're going to be eaten alive. If you want to explore Chalice + LS, start with the list in the report and have an open mind.

Thanks for the comments about the report. I like writing them, so it's cool that others like reading them. :)

AngryTroll

01-02-2010, 02:22 PM

It was good to run into you at the tournament! I was glad we got some extra games in after our match.

Are you going to make it this Sunday?

Zach Tartell

01-02-2010, 02:55 PM

I'm far more interested in the EDH free playing. Your deck seems to run an abundance of creatures that don't win you the game, followed by a bunch of spells that seem to be... poor fits.

What did you play against? How many people?

Bardo

01-02-2010, 03:07 PM

It's for semi-casual 4-players games. The kind of deck you'd want to play while drinking a dark beer. I played it last month at the store's weekly EDH event; played wonderfully.

inside88

01-04-2010, 11:59 PM

GG for your 3rd place ...!

I'm a fan of your deckbuilding
Chalice Control must be one of the most difficult to play yeah !
you must play as a protection with Chalice @1 and @2